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Cauliflower Mac 'n' Cheese

I’ve written this recipe to serve 6, but it’s easy to double up if you want to get into the batch-cooking vibe and get an extra meal or two in the freezer, or if you want to safely drop a dish on a neighbour’s doorstep. You can
get this prepped in the morning, ready to bake up for lunch or dinner. Happy days.

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Steps

Ingredients

Ingredients

Cauliflower Mac 'n' Cheese

15g unsalted butter

1 leek

1 stick of celery

½ a bulb optional: fennel

(600g) / 1 small head cauliflower (600g)

450g dried pasta

1 tablespoon plain flour

500ml semi-skimmed milk

1 teaspoon English mustard

100g mixed cheese, such as Cheddar, Parmesan, feta, halloumi

100g stale bread

2 cloves garlic

optional: a few sprigs of fresh herbs, such as thyme or oregano olive oil

Steps

Put a large shallow ovenproof casserole pan on a medium heat with the
butter.

Trim, halve, wash and slice the leek and add to the pan. Stir regularly
while you trim, slice and add the celery, then trim, chop and add the
fennel, if using.

Break the cauliflower into florets, then cut into 2cm-thick slices and
finely slice the stalk and any nice leaves. Add the stalk and leaves to
the pan and cook for 10 minutes, or until soft but not coloured,
stirring regularly.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling salted water for 8
minutes (5 if using macaroni). Reserving a mugful of starchy cooking
water, drain the pasta and pour into a 25cm x 35cm baking dish (or
divide between smaller ones).

Stir the flour into the veg pan for 30 seconds, then gradually pour in
the milk, stirring all the time, followed by 500ml of water. Simmer for
5 minutes, then stir in the mustard and season with sea salt and black
pepper.

Add the cauliflower florets to the sauce and let it blip away until
thickened while you coarsely grate the cheese.

Stir the cheese into the sauce, then blitz until smooth with a hand
blender, or in batches in a food processor.

Pour over the pasta then, if you need to loosen it, add a little
reserved pasta water – the sauce will thicken up as it bakes.

Blitz your stale bread into crumbs in the processor (or smash up in a
clean tea towel). Peel and grate the garlic. Pick the herb leaves, if using, and mix it all together with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Scatter the crumbs over the pasta, grating over more cheese, if you’ve
got it, then bake for 30 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.

Tips:Two of my girls are gluten-free and it’s easy to swap gluten-free pasta and
flour into this recipe. Either switch out the bread for a gluten-free
alternative or leave out altogether. You could always sprinkle over some
seeds instead.

EASY SWAPS:

– Use whatever pasta you’ve got, penne, fusilli, or even a mixture.
– Hero broccoli or squash instead of cauliflower, if that’s what you’ve got.
– You can swap out leeks for onions.
– When it comes to cheese, use whatever you’ve got, this is a great recipe
for using up odds and ends.
– On the herb front, thyme, oregano, marjoram or chopped rosemary would all
be delicious, or even a pinch of dried herbs.
– No English mustard? No problem, use Dijon mustard instead.